Velvet Cactus, Ancora, and High Hat Quick Reviews

All are very new restaurants so take it for what its worth.

Velvet Cactus is not trying to aspire to anything great on a culinary scene. Its more of a mexican gastropub with just solid food and hot hostesses. Tacos were very disappointing...enchiladas were better.

Now on to restaurants that deserved to be talked about. Garcia opened BOTH restaurants tonight...only Garcia could swing this. He bounced between the two.

We started at High Hat (Detla cuisine): the place looks like an old woolworth and the prices are very low. Delta tamales...very good. They are not quite Hick's, but they are serious Delta tamales. My wife liked the pimento cheese a lot...I thought it was just good. It had too much pimento in it for me, but it was still good. Chicken sausage gumbo was excellent as was the side of sweet potato salad. When I go back I would get the delta tamales and one of the catfish platters and maybe the grilled donut with ice cream. I think this place has a HUGE potential....I want it to find itself though (they have pimento cheese burger, but no pimento BLT or grilled pimento cheese sandwich...no fried okra? no fried green tomatos? no comeback sauce or dressing?...need to step up the Delta items). This place is going to be a huge hit...huge. Why? bc delta food is fricking awesome.

Ancora was great as well. They cure their own salumi. One of the better plates of Italian meats we have ever had (and we both have toured Italy extensively). I had an ancora old fashioned with satsuma...excellent cocktail. We split a pizza with cheese, sauce, salumi...burn on the sides and underneath like a good Naples pizza should be. The oven is wood burning oven was built in Naples. This place is going to be great as well. Garcia, not surprisingly, will have two more hit restaurants.